1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to apparatus for assisting handicapped or disabled people with transportation, sanitation or other therapy procedures.
2. Description of Related Art
More than 20% of adults over age 65 have difficulty with at least one activity of daily living (ADL) or with walking. With increased age, especially over 80 years, difficulties with ADL increases dramatically. Bathing is the most common ADL problem, followed by transferring between bed and chair, dressing, toileting and feeding.
Many devices have been invented for helping the invalid or handicapped patients in bathing, transfer between bed and chair, toileting, walking, and physical therapy. Usually, each device is designed for one specific application. For instance, there are many kinds of wheelchairs; e.g., ordinary wheelchairs and commode/shower wheelchairs. Lifts have been used to transfer patients between bed, wheelchair, commode, bathtub, and automobile. Bath lifts and bath chair lifts are used specifically to lift patients in and out of bathtubs. Lifting systems that have a hoist mounted on a trolley, running on a rail, are used to lift and transport patients. The rail is either suspended from the ceiling, or as the top of a gantry. For physical therapeutic exercise, there are equipment available for the exercise of hand and arm, and for the legs. Also, apparatus is available to help patients walk and stand up. All the above devices are currently available on the market.
Other prior art includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 953,962; 2,272,778; 4,117,561; 4,682,377; 4,703,523; 4,719,655; 4,737,997; and 5,165,123 which were designed for lifting and transferring a patient from bed to wheelchair. U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,758 was designed for lifting and transferring. U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,842 is an adjustable wheelchair. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,141,094; 4,530,122; and 4,999,862 provide lifting devices to be added to manual or electrical wheelchairs for lifting and transferring patients from a wheelchair. U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,319 was designed for aiding a wheelchair user to stand up.
It would be ideal to have all the aforementioned equipment readily available for the care of invalid patients, because each one of them has only limited application. Because the specialized equipment is very expensive it is unlikely that a patient will have all of them available for use. It is also extremely unwieldy to store and to manage that many pieces of medical equipment in an ordinary household--even in a modest size nursing home or hospital.